CHOK SUAT LING
The repercussions of motherhood delayed

2009/11/05

NOT that long ago, the word "frozen" applied only to ice cubes, the North Pole, and pizza. But times have changed. And how. Now, it is possible to freeze eggs. And not those of the sort that can be scrambled or poached with potato cubes and onions.

The New Sunday Times last weekend reported that women in Malaysia are beginning to freeze their eggs in "egg banks" so they can have their babies later in life. The procedure has been available since last year, and at least three private hospitals in the Klang Valley have egg-bank facilities. While embryo-freezing has existed since the 1980s, egg-freezing technology has only recently succeeded in freezing human eggs and storing them.

Most of the women who undergo the procedure do so for medical reasons: they want to delay motherhood while undergoing cancer treatment, for example. For them, this scientific advancement is a godsend. Egg-freezing allows them to preserve their fertility until the danger is past.

The fear, however, is that women may opt for this procedure not for medical reasons but on a whim, until they find "the perfect man" (which, like Bigfoot, is a creature of myth) or climb the corporate ladder high enough.

This trend is being noticed in developed countries. From 1997 to 1999, 539 births were reported among mothers over the age of 50 in the United States. In Britain, more than 20 babies are born to women over the age of 50 every year. Official figures in 2005 revealed 22,200 births to women over 40, up from 11,300 a decade earlier.

It is now possible for women to be pregnant at an age deemed unseemly in olden days. They can -- thanks to fertility treatments and egg-freezing -- but that does not mean they should.

Women's rights advocates may see this as an "extension to their reproductive freedom", but shouldn't they be mindful of the repercussions of motherhood delayed for purely self-serving reasons?

Motherhood late in life raises dire health risks -- it has been reported that women delaying motherhood has led to a sharp rise in the number of babies diagnosed with Down's syndrome over the past 20 years.

There is also the concern that an older mother might not be able to care for a child as she ages. Running after and caring for a rambunctious toddler, mothers around the world will attest, is more stressful and tiring than the jobs of the prime minister and MACC chief combined.

However, there are those who underscore that having a child is a fundamental right; that what matters is commitment to a child's well-being, not the age of the parents.

It's right there in Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family."

But what of the rights of the child to suitable parents? What ought to be paramount is not the interest of the mother or father, but that of the child. Botox, power-lifting treatments and tempe could make a 70-year-old look no older than her granddaughter, but having a child at a post-menopausal age is outrageous, if not scandalous.

It is also a question of thresholds; of where we must draw the line. When the risks to either mother or child become so excessive as to make such a pregnancy ill-advised, there is exactly where the line should be.

Maria del Carmen Bousada's children would surely agree. Once the world's oldest mother at 69, Bousada from Spain died of cancer in July, leaving behind two young children born following in-vitro fertilisation only two years earlier.

Bousada had thought she was fit and healthy to raise children, believing longevity ran in her family, yet was diagnosed with terminal cancer just months before her children were born.

It is a trite point but, statistically, older mothers are more likely to die sooner after giving birth than younger ones. Why would a woman want to become a mother at an age when she knows her children are more likely to be orphaned when they are young?

This should also apply to older fathers. Older mothers are often flogged as self-centred, selfish careerists while older fathers are given pats on the back and resoundingly congratulated for their virility, when nothing is more galling than being unable to tell Papa from Grandpa.

sling@nst.com.my

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